AbstractAdolescent growth and social development shape the early development of offspring from preconception through to the post-partum period through distinct processes in males and females. At a time of great change in the forces shaping adolescence, including the timing of parenthood, investments in today’s adolescents, the largest cohort in human history, will yield great dividends for future generations..... more

DOHaD ANZ

The DOHaD Society of Australia and New Zealand (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease) is an initiative directly aligned with the global agenda to combat the devastation of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The integrated cross-disciplinary approach will build on the inextricable link between maternal, perinatal and early childhood factors and the risk of developing NCDs in later life.

The mandate is for ‘disease prevention’ as the ultimate approach to reducing the burden of NCDs. Early life is a critical time of risk, but also a critical time of opportunity for promotion of health and prevention of future disease. The greatest potential for success lies in early intervention and there is already substantial evidence that initiatives to promote a ‘healthy start to life’ can reduce the risk of both early and later NCDs with wide social and economic benefits.

Common risk factors mean common solutions. All modern diseases are associated with modern lifestyle changes, suggesting common risk factors for many NCDs. These risks include unhealthy dietary patterns, reduced physical activity, altered patterns of microbial exposure, tobacco smoking, harmful use of alcohol, and other environmental pollutants. A coordinated interdisciplinary approach is imperative to to mitigate the growing burden of a broad range of modern diseases, and to improve health in the new millennium.
The DOHaD Society of Australia and New Zealand Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) is an initiative is directly aligned with the global agenda to combat the devastation of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The integrated cross-disciplinary approach will build on the inextricable link between maternal, perinatal and early childhood factors and the risk of developing NCDs in later life.

The mandate is for ‘disease prevention’ as the ultimate approach to reducing the burden of NCDs. Early life is a critical time of risk, but also a critical time of opportunity for promotion of health and prevention of future disease. The greatest potential for success lies in early intervention and there is already substantial evidence that initiatives to promote a ‘healthy start to life’ can reduce the risk of both early and later NCDs with wide social and economic benefits.

Common risk factors mean common solutions. All modern diseases are associated with modern lifestyle changes, suggesting common risk factors for many NCDs. These risks include unhealthy dietary patterns, reduced physical activity, altered patterns of microbial exposure, tobacco smoking, harmful use of alcohol, and other environmental pollutants. A coordinated interdisciplinary approach is imperative to to mitigate the growing burden of a broad range of modern diseases, and to improve health in the new millennium.

The DOHaD Society of Australia and New Zealand Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)

DOHaD ANZ Committee

PRESIDENT

A/Prof Bev Muhlhausler completed her PhD in 2006, and is now Head of the Obesity and Metabolic Health Division and Deputy Director of the FOODplus Research Centre at the University of Adelaide. Bev’s primary interest is the perinatal origins of obesity and poor metabolic health, with a particular interest in determining the mechanisms through which maternal obesity and poor quality ‘Western-style’ diets predispose the offspring to obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Email: beverly.muhlhausler@adelaide.edu.auPhone: +61 8 8313 0848

PAST-PRESIDENT

Prof. Susan L. Prescott MD, PhD, is an internationally acclaimed pediatrician and immunologist. For more than 20 years she has been publishing paradigm-shifting research, casting light on the ways in which all life experiences - including contact with microbes - resonate through the immune system, setting the stage for subsequent health or disease. Her current work focuses on the interconnections between human health and planetary health - promoting holistic value systems for both ecological and social justice. She is the founding President of the DOHaD Society of ANZ, and is the current Director of the ORIGINS project, which examines how the environment influences all aspects of physical and mental health throughout life.

Email: susan.prescott@telethonkids.org.auPhone: +61 8 9340 8171

VICE-PRESIDENT

Dr Nicolette Hodylis a research leader of the Perinatal Health and Child Development group in the Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide. Her current research explores how common intrauterine and neonatal environmental exposures (including maternal stress, depression and anxiety) and clinical exposures (inflammation and antenatal betamethasone) influence child neurodevelopment, via programming of neuroendocrine and immune axes. She values using her skills to find ways to improve lifelong health: she does this by investigating the biological and psychological pathways that lead to poor health, and creating solutions that can mitigate these from occurring. She received her PhD (University of Newcastle, NSW) in 2008, and post-graduate qualifications in Biostatistics (2011) and Management (2010) (both at University of Adelaide). She is the Vice President, and previously the South Australian representative, of the executive council for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Australia and New Zealand (DOHAD ANZ) society, and is the treasurer of the Endocrine Society of Australia (2011-2017).

Email: Nicolette.hodyl@adelaide.edu.au

SECRETARY

Dr Hayley Dickinson is a reproductive physiologist and obtained her PhD from Monash University in 2006. She is currently an NHMRC Career Development Fellow. Her research is aimed at saving babies lives and reducing the life-long, multi-organ burden of major perinatal conditions such as birth asphyxia and intrauterine growth restriction, through targeted antenatal interventions. She uses the spiny mouse, a precocial rodent species, as her pre-clinical research tool, and has recently discovered that this species menstruates. She currently leads a series of clinical studies aimed at unravelling the role of creatine in pregnancy. Hayley is head of the Embryology and Placental Biology Research Group at The Ritchie Centre, Hudson Institute of Medical Research and leads a team of post-doctoral fellows, research nurses and PhD and honours students

Email: hayley.dickinson@hudson.org.au

TREASURER

Professor Mark Vickers is based at the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland. Dr Vickers’ research focus is on the effect of alterations in early life nutrition on the later health and wellbeing of offspring with a particular focus on the development of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. Dr Vickers has established a number of preclinical models utilizing the paradigm of altered early-life nutrition (including both under- and overnutrition) to examine the mechanistic basis of programming during critical periods of developmental plasticity. Dr Vickers also investigates the potential for reversibility of developmental programming via both nutritional and pharmacologic interventions and was one of the first to show that developmental programming was potentially reversible with interventions in the early life period.

Email: m.vickers@auckland.ac.nzPhone: +64 9 923 6687

SA REP

Dr. Prabha Andraweera (MBBS, PhD) is a NMHRC Peter Doherty BioMedical Fellow in the Discipline of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Adelaide Medical School and the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide. Her current research focuses on genetic and intrauterine environmental effects on cardiovascular risk after adverse pregnancy outcomes in women and children. Contact details

Email: prabha.andraweera@adelaide.edu.auPhone: +61 8 8313 4086

WA REP

Dr Amy Wooldridge is a research associate at the University of Western Australia with a focus in perinatal physiology, in particular immune outcomes. Her PhD research investigated prenatal programming of allergic susceptibility, in particular due to intrauterine growth restriction. Amy’s current research focuses on improving immune/inflammatory outcomes of preterm infants.

Email: amy.wooldridge@uwa.edu.au

NT REP

Dr Gurmeet Singh is the director of the Life Course Studies which includes the Aboriginal Birth Cohort (ABC), the oldest and largest cohort of Aboriginal people in Australasia. She has dedicated over 19 years to Indigenous health in the Northern Territory (NT), in her roles as a Paediatrician, a Researcher and Academic capacity with the Northern Territory Medical Program. Her main area of interest is the relationship of early life factors to later health and chronic disease, particularly renal disease.

Email: Gurmeet.Singh@menzies.edu.au

VIC/TAS REP

Professor Mary Wlodek is a Professor in the Department of Physiology, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne. Professor Wlodek graduated with a BSc(Hons) and MSc from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. She was awarded her PhD in Physiology from Monash University, Australia. She is a global leader in developmental origins physiological research and Head of the Fetal, Postnatal & Adult Physiology & Disease Laboratory. She is renowned for her successful experimental model that mimics human growth profiles, organ deficits and phenotypes observed in babies born small who are susceptible to adult diseases. Her laboratory is recognised as performing complex whole animal physiological studies exploring of the adult, pregnancy and transgenerational consequences of being born small. Critical to translational outcomes is the incorporation of various innovative treatments and interventions including nutritional (cross-fostering, diet), exercise, pregnancy, transgenerational and impact of stress and alcohol during pregnancy.

Email: m.wlodek@unimelb.edu.au

NSW/ACT REP

Prof. Ralph Nanan is Chair and Professor of Paediatrics at the Sydney Medical School Nepean and Sub-dean of Research. He is also the Director of the Charles Perkins Centre Nepean and leads the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease project node. Professor Nanan started his scientific career in Paediatrics at the Children’s University Hospital in Wuerzburg, Germany, where he completed his PhD in 1991 in basic immunology. He then completed the Habilitation, which is the highest German academic degree, in 2002 in clinical immunology, before accepting the position of Director of Paediatrics at Nepean Hospital in 2003 and then his current position in 2005.Since beginning at Nepean, Professor Nanan has established a paediatric immunology laboratory and developed a comprehensive paediatric allergy service. He has also been heavily involved in policy development on a state level. Professor Nanan is a Chief Investigator on several clinical cohort studies. Apart from this, he has multiple teaching and supervisory responsibilities at the University of Sydney and regularly speaks at national and international conferences. Professor Nanan’s main areas of interest are the developmental origins of health and disease with a specific focus on paediatric clinical immunology, allergy and perinatology.

Email: ralph.nanan@sydney.edu.au

NZ REP

Dr Clare Reynolds (BSc, PhD) is a senior research fellow at the Liggins Institute, University of Auckland. Her research focus includes metabolic inflammation and the role of maternal diet during pregnancy on the long term health outcomes of offspring during adulthood. Dr Reynolds uses small animal models and immunological, biochemical and molecular methodologies to address her research questions. She is currently funded by a HRC Sir Charles Hercus Research Fellowship and Emerging Researcher Grant.

Email: c.reynolds@auckland.ac.nz

SOCIAL MEDIA

A/Prof Jeff Craig leads the MCRI Early Life Epigenetics Research Group. He has established a number of early life cohorts, many of them involving twins. He focuses on epigenetic changes associated with early development and the link between environmental factors, development and disease.

Email: jeff.craig@mcri.edu.au

MEDIA

Professor Margaret Morris (BSc, PhD Monash) is currently Head of Pharmacology at UNSW Sydney, and leads the Environmental determinants of obesity research group within Medical Sciences. Her research addresses critical questions concerning the impact of adverse early life events and lifestyle factors on chronic disease risk. The impact of parental obesity and early childhood events has been a key focus, exploring offspring metabolic and cardiovascular risk, and options for intervention. Current work includes intergenerational transmission of obesity and the psychology of eating, e.g. how does provision of a varied, energy rich diet override the regulatory control mechanisms that should maintain body weight? Her lab is investigating the impact of sugar, and fat, on cognition and the gut microbiota.

Email: m.morris@unsw.edu.au

ECR REP

Dr Erin McGillick completed her PhD in fetal physiology at the University of South Australia and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at The Ritchie Centre, Hudson Institute of Medical Research, Monash University. Erin's research investigates the effect of pregnancy complications on lung development and the transition from fetal to newborn life. This work is directed towards gaining greater understanding of the fundamental physiology underpinning the transition at birth in compromised newborns. This work aims to provide pre-clinical evidence to better inform management of newborns to reduce both the short- and long-term burden of disease associated with obstetric subpopulations.

Email: erin.mcgillick@hudson.org.au

ECR Rep

Dr Karen Best is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Healthy Mothers, Babies & Children theme of the South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) based at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, in Adelaide. Karen has a background in Nursing, Midwifery and Clinical Trial Management and is committed to improving health of mothers and their babies through the conduct and translation of high quality research. She has managed a number of large key intervention trials involving omega-3 supplementation in the perinatal period and is currently a chief Investigator on the largest-ever trial of omega-3 in pregnancy for the prevention of preterm birth.

DOHaD International

International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: DOHaD

This international learned society aims to promote research into the fetal and developmental origins of health and disease.

The DOHaD concept is bringing new insights into the pathogenesis of disease. We now know that poor fetal growth and small size at birth are followed by increased risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. This has led to the hypothesis that these disorders originate through unbalanced nutrition in utero and during infancy. There is a range of experimental models for investigating the underlying biological mechanisms, and DOHaD is now a burgeoning research area in both basic and clinical sciences.

Research into developmental origins of health and disease now involves scientists from many backgrounds. This society promotes cohesion and shared knowledge between groups working in different specialties and different countries.